


Falling

by kokooakdown



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokooakdown/pseuds/kokooakdown
Summary: The story of the Eighth Doctor building the Master's android form that he is still in during "Scream of the Shalka" and "the Feast of Stone".





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people don't like fics in second person, but la vie.

Falling.

Or, perhaps falling is the wrong word? Falling in every direction, all around. Falling to the point your atoms are being pulled apart. Or, maybe falling is the best term, but if so, this the platonic ideal of falling --- what all other falling aspires to be.

Until, finally, your eyes open. No, these aren’t your eyes. Not exactly. Where once you had nerves and synapses, now there are wires and circuits. You move to sit up, and suddenly you’re completely upright. Usually there’s at least a bit of a strain on your abdomen, but now it just happens as soon as you think it. Or, not quite as soon. The more you move your head to get a better view of the room you're in, the more you notice a little bit of lag. Milliseconds, but noticeable. Especially to you.

You’ve been in this room before. It’s the console room of a TT Capsule, type 40 by the shape of the console: a gothic aesthetic, a gramophone, a large green chair facing away from you. And in it, a familiar figure. You know some time has passed but feeling into the air for the turn of the universe, you find it stale. If time is passing, you can’t feel it any more.

“Doctor,” you call out to the man in the chair, a note of fear you hadn’t meant to show. You'll have to work on that. Seems this robotic body you find yourself in takes some subconscious clues as to how to respond. And your voice sounds just as you'd imagined it to, not like that dull paramedic. 

“Ah,” the Doctor responds, jumping to his feet. He’s still wearing parts of the Victor Frankenstein costume he’d been in last you saw him, less the frock coat and cravat. “You’re awake. Hate to say it, but I'm happy to see it.”

The Doctor throws down the book he was reading and comes bounding over. Curls flopping, he cuts the space between you in two steps. His face is so close. The last time the two of you were face-to-face like this, he dropped you into the Eye of Harmony.

That sends a jolt through you. Must be why you were falling. You look down: black clothes cover your body. You touch them but they’re not clothes, they’re a part of you. This is just what your body looks like now.

You should be dead.

“Oh, my dear Doctor,” you laugh, anything to break the tension. “I didn’t know you cared. Thought you’d be happy to finally be rid of me.” You’re trying to be facetious, but honestly, it’s too true. Thankfully, you find that you’re unable to cry.

He doesn’t reply, however. Walking to a console that’s facing exactly away from you with his lips scrunched at what's on it. You hazard a guess.

“So, Doctor. What’s the prognosis?”

He takes a moment further to examine the screen before turning it to face you. “Looking good so far. Some problems here from when you sat up.”

“Oh?”

There is some concern, but even if something is wrong, the most dangerous part has already happened: simply getting your consciousness into the robot.

“Yes, you may have a loose connection in your waist somewhere. Try moving your legs. It's for your own good.”

How often have you gone against your own better judgement just to avoid doing what you're told? Nevertheless, you try to wiggle your toes but they just curl.

“Are the toes supposed to all move together?”

“Probably not. The legs though?” He looks disappointed.

“Nothing now,” you sigh. “Well, at least you know I can’t run away.”

“That actually wasn’t my biggest concern now anyway," the Doctor laughs mirthlessly and looks up at the time rotor. "But, it looks like you’ll be on that table until I manage to get this sorted.”

“Oh, but to be whole again!” you call out, sighing dramatically and laying back as if this table were a fainting couch.

"I am sorry," he responds.

The Doctor looks disappointed in himself. You balk for a moment but catch the expression before the lag makes it so.

“Of course. And rightly so.” You’d been joking, but you can’t let him know you’re actually thankful. That, after all, would be a fate worse than death.

The Doctor comes around his monitor to your side. “This may be strange, but would you mind lying back?”

You do so, no real reason otherwise. As the Doctor pulls on the lobe of your ear, you see the metallic inside of your own face swing out and to the left. You’re not even sure if what the Doctor is looking at right now shows any of the emotions you know were there a moment ago, or anything you’re trying to express right now.

“Sorry about this.”

And then black once more.


	2. Chapter 2

And light.

Light, and the Doctor’s face. He’s smiling, hardly able to stay in one place. It seems your face is closed again. That's a relief.

“Come on up!”

It feels as though no time at all has passed, but suddenly the Doctor’s demeanor has changed. He pulls you to your feet, holding both your hands, ready for your legs to give out beneath you, but expecting them to hold. And so they do.

You can’t help but smile with him, both for his genuine and infectious excitement, and because you’re alive, or at least, you're well. And who doesn't want to be well?

“Wait here,” the Doctor lets go of your hand and you pull it back up to yourself, rubbing the spots he’s been touching. He rushes over to the gramophone and puts on a disc. A jaunty 3/4 tune starts to play.

“Can I have your hand?”

You look at him suspiciously. “What do you want it for?”

“To dance, of course!” and then he composes himself. “I want to know if your legs are better, that's all.”

Still suspicious, you take his hand and join him for the dance.

It starts off well enough, but the tune picks up the pace a little, and the Doctor begins to let more and more loose with his movements—

He dips you, and you feel the space where your hearts would have swelled. But as he moves to pull you back up, your body lags and you go falling, not catching yourself as fast as even a human would have been able to.

A crash.

“Useless, Doctor!”

He freezes. “I’m sorr—”

“What did you even bring me back for? Dancing?!”

You know it’s unfair to him, but your body won’t respond properly. How can you be the master of all matter, if you can’t even master your own form?

You pull yourself to your feet, slapping the Doctor’s hand away as he tries to help.

You wait until the Doctor turns back to the gramophone and make a dash for the TARDIS doors. As you pass through into the night air, an internal thermometer tells you that it’s cold, but that’s more of a conscious knowledge than a true feeling.

As you leave the TARDIS, you do feel cold, though. You feel the energy in your batteries fading. You turn around and begin shouting at the Doctor: “You’ve trapped me h-“

And the power is out.


	3. Chapter 3

“-ere!” 

There it is again. The TARDIS ceiling. You’re back on that same table you’ve woken up on twice now. 

“It’s not what I want; it’s just how it is for now.”

You turn your head to look at him. He looks ashamed. You stare daggers at him to hurt him more.

“So, you’d really let me go? When this is all done? When you’ve built me a body I can actually live in? You’d let me go back to who I was before?”

“I imagine, we’ll come to the day where I couldn’t keep you here if I tried. But for now, you’re running on the artron energy from the TARDIS herself and you have to be inside or you won’t have power.”

Well, he seems sincere. He is one of two people you would want to be saving your life anyway. And even though the Rani would have a better chance of success, she'd probably do her best to keep you, whether as a lab assistant or a pet.

You look back to him your own expression having softened from looking at his pleading smile. You smile back despite yourself.

“I could let you die,” the Doctor says. “If being here like this is really so bad.”

“No, it’s not,” you answer.

You both sit there quietly. You’re thinking about all the time you used to spend together. Sneaking off to the badlands and sleeping in the old woman's barn. Running through the fields. 

And then more recently, darting across the cosmos, foiling each other in turn. Gosh, you’d hated him for a while. But you were always happy to see him, nevertheless.

Besides, if you were meant to be dead, truly meant to be, then you would.

“My dear Doctor,” you say, breaking the silence. You look at him like he’s your whole world, and perhaps for a while he will be. Might as well make the best of it. “Care to finish that dance?”

“Of course, Master.”

He seems like he might be close to crying, but by the time he turns back from the gramophone, he’s in control of his emotions. You approach him and take hold to lead.

A few seconds of whispering silence then, as the music starts again, you pull him close.

“I do so love it when you say my name.”

By the time the whole LP has finished playing, you still haven’t let your hold on him lax. And you realize that this. This feeling now. Is actually the falling that all other falling aspires to be.


End file.
